Water and food security essay

There are two major types of zooplankton (tiny drifting animals) that build shells made of calcium carbonate: foraminifera and pteropods . They may be small, but they are big players in the food webs of the ocean, as almost all larger life eats zooplankton or other animals that eat zooplankton. They are also critical to the carbon cycle —how carbon (as carbon dioxide and calcium carbonate) moves between air, land and sea. Oceans contain the greatest amount of actively cycled carbon in the world and are also very important in storing carbon. When shelled zooplankton (as well as shelled phytoplankton) die and sink to the seafloor, they carry their calcium carbonate shells with them, which are deposited as rock or sediment and stored for the foreseeable future. This is an important way that carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere, slowing the rise in temperature caused by the greenhouse effect .